jdw

In May? From Dan's list: 716. AJ Burned comm. 5/26/95 Stan Hansen vs. Mitsuharu Misawa Kenta Kobashi vs. Johnny Ace Here is Carny, though it sounds like you have it: 1174. AJ Converted comm. 1995 Champion Carnival Vol. 1 Pt. 1 1175. AJ Converted comm. 1995 Champion Carnival Vol. 1 Pt. 2 Stan Hansen vs Takao Omori, 3/21/95 Mitsuhara Misawa vs Doug Furnas, 3/21/95 Toshiaki Kawada vs Jun Akiyama, 3/21/95 Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi, 3/21/95 Dan Kroffat vs Doug Furnas (Clipped), 3/24/95 Jun Akiyama vs Takao Omori, 3/24/95 Danny Spivey vs Johnny Ace (JIP), 3/24/95 Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuhara Misawa, / Stan Hansen vs Akira Taue, Toshiaki Kawada, / Giant Baba, 3/24/95 1176. AJ Converted comm. 1995 Champion Carnival Vol. 2 Pt. 1 1177. AJ Converted comm. 1995 Champion Carnival Vol. 2 Pt. 2 Masao Inoue, Haruka Eigen, / Masa Fuchi vs Mitsuo Momota, Rusher Kimura / Jumbo Tsuruta, 3/26/95 (clipped) Jun Akiyama vs Doug Furnas, 3/26/95 Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue, / Yoshinari Ogawa vs Giant Baba, Stan Hansen / Takao Omori, 3/26/95 Mitsuhara Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi, 3/26/95 Doug Furnas / Dan Kroffat vs Kenta Kobashi / Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, 4/8/95 (Clipped) Stan Hansen vs Johnny Ace, 4/8/95 (clipped) Mitsuhara Misawa vs Jun Akiyama, 4/8/95 Toshiaki Kawada vs Akira Taue, 4/8/95 1178. AJ Converted comm. 1995 Champion Carnival Vol. 3 Pt. 1 1179. AJ Converted comm. 1995 Champion Carnival Vol. 3 Pt. 2 Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori, 4/6/95 Jun Akiyama vs Akira Taue, 4/6/95 Johnny Ace, Dan Kroffat, / The Eagle vs Stan Hansen, Giant Baba, / Yoshinari Ogawa, 4/6/95 Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada, 4/6/95 Kenta Kobashi, Jun Akiyama, / Kentaro Shiga vs Johnny Ace, Dan Kroffat,/ ???, 4/12/95 Toshiaki Kawada vs Takao Omori, 4/12/95 Stan Hansen vs Doug Furnas, 4/12/95 Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue, 4/12/95 Singles matches in Red, the six-man in Blue. I'm also highlighting the Kobashi-Omori and Kawada-Omori matches. I haven't watched them since 1995 so don't have a clear image of whether they're any good. But worth you and Will checking them out, and if they're good including them. Rare chance in that era to see Kawada and Kobashi work against a "young boy" similar to Jumbo working against them several years earlier. Also to see what Omori had at that moment. Not a strong recommendation. The Akiyama-Furnas is probably worth a similar watch. Again, don't recall if it's any good. Might have a decent match. Things like Kawada-Taue stood out to me at the time, Jun-Misawa a few days after Misawa's eye was crushed, the uniqueness (at the time) of the six-man draw, etc. The rest of the disk is a little fuzzy. John

Don't know if this is closed yet... looking at the AJPW suggestions with some comments and tossing a few more out. Both of the one hour draws from January should be there for historical value even if we debate the qualities. First TC draw, and first Tag Title match to go an hour since the 70s. These are TV dates: 02/11/95 Omori & Akiyama vs. Rogers & Fulton (All Asia final) 02/11/95 Kawada & Taue vs. Kroffat & Furnas The first is a nice little match, and a nice chance to see what the Fantastics are up to. I don't think it eats up a ton of TV time. But so much of AJPW in 1995 is The Usual Suspects that it's a nice change of pace. Misawa, Kobashi & Akiyama vs Williams, Ace & RVD, 2/17 Don't remember tat one at all. Misawa/Kobashi vs Williams/Ace, AJ 3/4 Of course that needs to be on there. 1995 Carnival This is really the Carny that can be covered well in a yearbook due to the commercial tape. Kawada/Akiyama 3/21 Taue vs Kobashi, AJ 3/21 The Taue match needs to be there. He debuts the nodowa off the apron, and it's a direct comp to the Taue-Kawada and Taue-Misawa matches coming up. Kobashi/Misawa 3/26 Kawada/Misawa 4/6 I'd strongly advocate that bring on there. This really is the one time you can see *all* of the Four Corners facing each other within a month's time in full matches. It is unique in that way. Kawada vs Taue, 4/8 Of course. Kawada vs Kobashi, 4/13 This isn't on the commercial and is chopped up on Original NTV. There is a special show, and I think Ditch mentioned that it also just came out in Classics. Others that may have been mentioned but that I didn't copy and paste: Misawa vs. Taue This is their league draw. A fine match. The reason to include this in addtion to the Final is that it gives you the come to the other 30 minutes draws: Misawa-Kawada and Kawada-Kobashi. Misawa vs. Akiyama (commercial) Taue vs. Akiyama (commercial) Kobashi vs Akiyama (NTV) Akiyama vs. Omari (commercial) I think all of those go hand-in-hand with the Kawada-Akiyama mentioned earlier. None of these are 25 minute matches, so they don't eat up a ton of space. But 1996 is Jun's Big Jump Up. This gives context of where he was in 1995. None better since he's not a factor at all in much of the rest of the year: the All Asia tag goes to sleep, there aren't a ton of six men, and they don't give him any singles matches of much note the rest of the year. This really is the time to see him... and to allow people to contrast Jun 1995 with say Kobashi 1990 when they were at the same stages of their career. Also lets people see the gap between the Big Four and Jun. Misawa vs Taue, AJ 4/15 Final... of course. Non-Carny Carny tags: Mitsuharu Misawa / Stan Hansen / Kenta Kobashi vs. Shoehi Baba / Toshiaki Kawada / Akira Taue Hansen, Kobashi & Akiyama vs Kawada, Ace & Omori, 4/15 The six man on Finals Night is perfectly okay. But I think the 60 minute draw at Korakuen Hall is more interesting, and has funny stuff like Baba sending one of the Boys to the back to get him something to drink. It's also very much a special surprise for Fans as Doc was out of the Carny, they booked this sort of on the fly, and then Kept Going. None of the fans expected it to keep going as it pretty much worked like a normal six man, a bit extend deeper into the 20s building towards a climax... then Kept Going. It's one of those where you could kind of imagine being in the building, a little disappointed that Doc was out, looking at this match... then they toss you something Special. It's a cool little match in that way. Does run out of a little steam down the stretch, but that's a hell of a long time into it. Also need to consider the six man of the Dome show. The Misawa-Kobashi from 10/95 needs to make it. First TC between the two, and follows the Kawada-Albright on the card. The Kobashi-Taue from the 7/95 Budokan is a contrast to the Misawa-Kawada on the same show. Some other things to consider: 3/95 Hansen-Kawada 5/95 Hansen-Misawa Stan wins the title for the last time. Stan-Kawada goes way too long. Misawa-Hansen is shorter, but not a load of fun either. At least clips. If it were an AJPW Yearbook, they both would go on in full for historical value and as people should see them. But with your space, the balance of these matches would be better served on something else. Clips... There was a mini-series between Ace and Kobashi. If I recall, the keeper was the same night as the Hansen-Misawa. It does play into Kobashi's bad leg, and nicely leads into El Super Classico later on the series. Since so much of 1995 AJPW is Four Corners, I'd actually recommend is as a contrast. I only wish the Kawada-Ace that I saw during Carny was out there since it would be a keeper. I like the Albright-Honda match from the year end Budokan. Not terribly long. If the year seems Carny-centric, consider: * the Tag Title was a two team feud after March, and kicked out just two more defenses on the set * a one-match Tag League relative to every other year * no Doc in the last 6 series of the year * very limited Hansen, and no one stepping up * tv killed off the six-man tag format for the most part * All Asia tag, which was cool in the first four years of the decade, went to its death this year In addition to the Usual Suspect Big Matches, the only real period of interesting, non-Usual Suspect stuff is Carny. And it presents a unique chance to see *very* itteration of: Misawa vs Kawada vs Taue vs Kobashi vs Jun In their original Four Corners roles before things changed next year. At this point: * Kawada had never pinned Misawa * Kobashi had never pinned Taue * Taue had never made a "big stand" as a singles * Misawa had never won Carny * Jun hadn't broken out from being the #3 on his side It's 10 matches, but I think worthwhile to carve out space for them in addition to the Usual Suspect Big Matches. John

I'm guessing this is where he switches from the "Arm Bomber" chokeslam to the "Nodowa Otoshi" chokeslam? John

Looks like from an earlier Bix post when this first turned up that 19:00 of the 22:11 aired. How much aired on the original JIP? Thought from the thread here back in 2008:

I think there was a comment above about not just them having issues selling buildings out, but they actually had paper out. John

On UFC, I think we talked about this somewhere... maybe it was a Snowden fb post. UFC isn't remotely close to peaking it's revenue. It's entirely possible that it has on PPV. But look at something that's drawing test patern ratings like the NHL getting a $200M per year deal from Comcast/NBC. I don't think any of us expect UFC to pull in the $1B or so a year than the NBA does off it's combined national contract (ESPN/ABC + TNT), but somewhere between the NHL and NBA isn't unreasonable if they can get several of the major players interested. People talked long about an HBO deal as being key. Really, HBO money is chump change compared to getting into the regular rotation of ESPN or FOX. I tend to think that at this time it's ESPN that they need to go to, though limiting it to a short 3-4 year deal rather than get locked into a 8-10 year deal. They really need to break through the barrier of being the *lead* on a Sports Center, and where ESPN sends major guys to cover it. They send folks to cover the British Open this week such as Van Pelt. Of course it's a property that they own. But they've also done it for things like the Master that they don't own. As much as I hate Chris Berman, it was been good for keeping golf over when ESPN thought enough of major events to send Boomer out to "host" coverage: Boomer had the pull to make sure it was going to get onto Sports Center, and not for a little one minute highlight package. You sadly have to get in bed with ESPN to get up to that next level where UFC is *very* valuable Sports Programing Content. John

I think one of the worst things I ever did online was to point out the Work Misawa's Neck concept, because lord did Mike run it into the ground for a couple of years. I think Frank eventually came up with Misawa By Numbers as a counter to it, especially after the Misawa-Jun and Misawa-Ace title matches drove him batty. Joh

I know you didn't ask... I like the 1/97 match. I think it's the best of their matches. Liked at the time the the 1997 Carny Final match between the two, but haven't watched it in more than a decade. Like the 10/97 less than probably anyone at the time. Didn't really hate it, but it didn't grab me. Bored/annoyed by the 1998 and 1999 matches. At the time... I liked the 1996 match. My Torch review was pretty positive of it. Really didn't like the 10/95 match. It really lost me down the stretch. I remember liking the Carny '95 match... another one I haven't watched in years. I didn't rate the 1993 Misawa-Kobashi as highly as Dave did, but I did enjoy it at the time. I much prefer Kobashi in that role, and 1993 in general, that most of his stuff after. John

It's amusing, and not really well written. But a fair amount of the criticism he tosses at the book is stuff that others have said. The only "fresh" take is his wanting Lou to spend more time describing the art of working. That's actually an interesting point, though Lou probably isn't one who could do it: just not in his nature. Not really in the nature of any of those old timers. They tell their stories, but I don't think any of them sit around breaking down matches in detail or going over the tricks of the trade. John

And these polls are usually voted on by fairly dumb people. Basically, no one but the slowest 15.1% thinks that this is a shoot, and they like it anyway. Kinda like wrestling in general. Pointing out that it's a work, and all the ways in which it is obviously a work, does not make you smarter than the room, and if you think otherwise, I'm frankly embarrassed for you. A poll taking of Figure4.com readers a week after Punk beat Cena on a WWE PPV to win the WWE Title? One would hope that those specific folks would know (rather than believe) Punk is under contract now. The discussion hear on whether it was a work, whether Punk was under contract, and how much of what Punk said ahead of time was generally (or specifically) known by WWE Creative/Production was one that took place *hear* back after the initial mic spot. I don't think there's been any discussion on that aspect since roughly the first week, when I think everyone hear pretty much was on the same page that it was a work, Punk was staying, and WWE Creative/Production was in on everything. The discussion we had on Comic Con wasn't about whether Punk was under contract or whether the angle was a work. It was about the specifics of the Comic Con Panel Crash, and largely due to a misreading of what people were saying: I thought people were buying into it being a Crashing, and eventually everyone came out and said/agreed that it was obviously a "crashing" that everyone but the Fans were in on. This really isn't about "smarter than the room". We're wrestling fans. We talk about wrestling. Lord knows that you're done long posts (and series of posts) picking apart another poster on the board that you disagreed with, or didn't think was right. Should we read into all of those posts that their only point is to show that you're smarter than the other poster? Or are you just talking wrestling, and not agreeing with someone else? John

This was 04/06/92.

This was 04/14/92.

I coined the term "The King of the Juniors" (beats me where the "all" came from). As far as I know, I've never said this is the match where he became it. Liger was the man when he won it. As far as I recall, his first three TV appearances: 04/24/89 Liger over Kobayashi (Dome debut) 05/22/89 Liger over Koshinaka 05/25/89 Liger over Hase (IWGP win) He cleared the division of the prior three native champs. None of them would ever challenge for the title again. They were out of even working regularly in "juniors" matches before long. Liger got a monster push, and the division was "his" in every bit of the sense that it had been Fujinami's or Sayama's. Liger just chose to book himself differently than those two had been booked. On "making" guys, Liger started doing that in 1989 two months after he won the title. Liger did major jobs to try to make Sano (1989), Beniot/Pegasus (1990), Honaga (1991), Nogami (1991), Samurai (1992), Kanemoto (1993) and Sasuke (1994). Kanemoto and Sasuke weren't in title matches, the rest were (along with the league job to Sammy before dropping the title to him two months later). Not all of them "took". Tigermoto never really got over, and he did much better after getting rid of the mask. Nogami never really clicked to a great degree. I like Honaga, but he didn't take off as a great rival for Liger. About the only guy in that period that he didn't personally "make" was Asai. Sammy happened to have the belt when the feud with WAR started, and rather than take the belt off him, Liger put Sammy over in another title match then had Sammy drop the belt to Dragon. Pretty clear point was to hold off their match for the Dome. I don't think we've ever gotten a good insider look at what went on there. Tenryu vs New Japan was front and center from late 1992 until early 1993, with lots of high profile singles matches, three major jobs by Tenryu (Choshu, Fujinami and Hash out the door), while getting a slew of scalps (Koshinaka, Choshu, Hash twice, Chono, Hase, Fujinami, Inoki). There were just Dragon over Sammy and Liger over Dragon, and that tag match. It's so unlike Liger's typical booking before and after that you have to think there were significant non-Liger forces going on that prevented it from being a typical Liger set of bookings. One man show is hyberboly, but on TV it was The Liger Show. That doesn't mean that the opponent sucks, or doesn't add anything positive. 12/03/93 is The Kawada Show, and the other three are quite good in it. This was Liger throwing the kitchen sink at Sammy. John

That's what I was getting at. I'm not saying that folks should rate it as highly as I do. I'm saying that in terms of "holding up", it is a match that ages well. Koji vs Sammy in 1997 doesn't hold up for some people for the general reasons that a lot of 90s juniors stuff doesn't hold up. Sammy-Ohtani doesn't really have those general reasons that juniors haven't aged well. I suspect that I can more easily find example of goofy selling in some highly rated 1996 AJPW matches than I can in Sammy-Ohtani. I'm not sold at all that Misawa-Kobashi from the Carny that year holds up to the ratings people gave it at the time: ****3/4 by Dave, and it's not like anyone *then* was objecting to it. My Torch review certainly put it over strongly. I know you like it quite a bit, but Loss had it at a unenthusiastic #50 for 1996, and Ditch (who is pretty much the 2010 equiv of 1996 jdw) couldn't even be bothered to write anything about it. 2 comments for the match in the 1996 thread. Does that strike anyone as the reaction to a match that was ****3/4 in 1996 at a time when there weren't 30 ****3/4 matches? I tend to think that Sammy-Ohtani has aged better than Misawa-Kobashi. That's not arguing that it's better than Misawa-Kobashi, or that Misawa-Kobashi is a bad match, or that everyone needs to rate Sammy-Ohtani as highly as I do. Simply that it's worked in a way those holds up really well relative to its peers and stands out as a bit of a not-normal match, while Misawa-Kobashi is kind of just another one of their good matches. John

If Sammy-Ohtani doesn't hold up, then I think pretty much none of pro-style puroresu from say 1994-1999 holds up. And I include my beloved AJPW boys in that not-hold-up bucket if that's the case. John

The PWG board is kind of funny with some hoping Punk comes up from Comic Con to show up at the card tonight. John

Kawada ripped off Macho as his inspiration for the 1993 RWTL. John

Totally agree. Hokuto-Kandori I on TV is edited. Not a ton relative to say Jaguar-Lioness or Toyota-Kyoko, as I think over 25 minutes of it aired (they did two Dream Slam I tv shows including a special if I recall, so they were able to get in more stuff in). But things like Jaguar-Lioness or Toyota-Kyoko are edited vastly more than Ohtani-Sammy. I cut Dave a little slack on AJW TV ratings because it's almost unique in being Seamlessly Edited Matches rather than even JIP Matches where you can kind-sorta-maybe guess what happened before (Ohtani-Sammy, 5/94 & 6/95 Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue). I don't think Dave grasped the way they did the editing. John

WTF?

Dave went gaga over this due to the massively, seamlessly edit TV version of the match. Don't know if the Yearbook has the commercial version of the match. It actually would have been an interesting thing in the Yearbook to have put both on the set, TV first and commercial second, and see what people thought. The TV version wasn't that long. This is similar to how everyone rated the Jaguar vs Lioness based on the similar short, seamless TV edit. John

John

From an internal logic standpoint, to Sell The Shootiness, the Videographer needs to act more like a fan. i.e run infront of Punk further down the hallway so that you could get a face shot. Then _talk_ on camera while coming down the hallway: Something along those lines, with Punk of course putting his own stuff in his own words. That's internal logic. Because if any of you have see fancams on youtube, they aren't remotely as "professional" as that one in the sense of a Fan not saying a damn thing when coming across a celeb in public. It's a nice angle. It's probably best that we don't think too much about the Internal Logic of the obvious non-shooty elements of it because they just give away that it wasn't a shot. We're better off treating this like the Beer Truck: good old implausible pro wrestling bullshit that still fun. John

Wasn't clear. You were kind of Meltzeresque in walking a fine line between whether it was real or fake. But I'm glad to see we agree: It was a nice worked angle that the WWE was in on. John

The one linked to above was posted on "ThisIsCMPunk's Channel" youtube account. It was shot by someone who comes down the hallway with Punk and is let in by security with Punk. He doesn't rush close to Punk like the Fans do. He doesn't hold up the camera high like the Fans do. Unlike the Fans, Video Guy leaves _with_ Punk... and then at some point very soon after the Crashing gives transfers the video to Punk so that Punk can upload it (or uploads it for him since he has keys to Punk's youtube account). I use the term Videographer as a joke to me: Punk's Good Buddy That He Brought Along To Shoot The Crash It's possible that Punk's Good Buddy could be Colt (though from the height of the camera, probably not). Could be his girlfriend/boyfriend/mom/brother/sister/dad/cousin. It could be someone who works for the WWE. Pick your fantasy on that one. But clearly the Videographer / Punk Good Buddy was part of the angle, specifically there to shoot it for Punk and/or the WWE. Since it's clear that the WWE was part of the Crash planning. John

Oh christ... please don't tell me that you're buying this was a real crashing and not just a good addition to the angle that Punk _and_ the WWE are working together on. They gave him three escorts specifically to the room where the WWE panel was going on. The set up in security positions: (i) straight outside the door & wide, and (ii) outside the door & following in. Two lug head event security guys (look at those two dumpy/dorky fuckers... those aren't the pair they've give Robert Downey if he was a little worried about fans). In addition, at least one higher level guy either in security or event staffing or WWE staffing or Mattel staffing... because dudes just don't wander around suits like that at Comic Con as casual wear to support their good friend Punk find a room to crash. And they did this on the fly? Punk just shows up today and says he needs security and they give it to him? With all the other shit Comic Con Security has to deal with as a mass of humanity drops down on SD... they've got time on the fly to drop what they're doing to peel off 2-3 security guys to help a C-Level celeb that probably the Heads of Security has never heard of crash the panel of two valued *Vendor's*? Come on... those likely weren't even security assigned just to Punk. The problem were part of the team assigned to supporting all of the WWE, and once Trip and Rey were safely escorted to the panel, a pair peeled off to where they had Punk stashed so that he could make his March To The Door. It's a nice, decently scripted angle. John